Chapter 26

Jaha was walking as brusquely down the hall as he could, with a black case clunking alongside his leg, finally happy to have a piece of good news.

"Where is the commander?" he asked Miller in the hallway.

"You mean Octavia? She hasn't been the commander for months now Jaha, you realize that this place has been a complete shit show for the past year?"

"Do you know where she is or not?"

Miller rolled his eyes. When Jaha got something in his head he was almost worse than Raven. "Yeah, Jackson told me she left medical, and I've seen her hanging out in the agro bay smelling leaves and algae before so you could try there.

Jaha rushed off in that direction, as Miller shook his head and walked away.

Jaha burst into the agro bay and saw Octavia standing quietly, looking at a grey wall and looking very introspective.

"Commander, I have good news."

Octavia turned around slowly, rage burning in her eyes, but curious. "What?"

"The ground. People are on the ground. Elgius corporation mining space ship I think – I hadn't thought of them in years, but they were prisoners shipped off into space a century ago, presumed dead and lost. They must have landed a few days ago. I've never successfully heard radio communications from the ground before, but today…it sounds like its their internal radios that we have tapped into so they don't know we are here yet. I'm not sure how we could have suddenly tapped into their internal communication system, it doesn't really make sense without intervention…"

Octavia snapped out of her current thoughts, and into these new ones.

"Who are they? Can they help us get out?"

"Yes, I think so. I wanted you to make first contact. It seems they landed a few hours ago and from what I have heard they have put three prisoners out to test the air for radiation that they had brought back in with little to no visible affects. I rushed down to tell you."

"Set it up now Jaha, I want to hear. I don't want this to be another figment of your imagination like the City of Light. Nothing for over six years and now we hear something? It's a bit convenient."

Jaha ignored her last comments and got to work on the side of the agro bay setting up the radio. It took a few minutes, but then all of sudden, she could hear it. Yes, it sounded…. They were humans, and they were speaking English, but they had strange and harsh accents and they sounded panicked and there was a lot of static.

"Whats going on with them?"

Jaha listened. "I'm not sure – it sounds like chaos compared to earlier."

Octavia strained her ears to cut out the accents and the obvious panic. She was concerned – this was the most outside human contact they had since Praimfaya. What was going on?

"Captain – uncontrollable illness – blood from eyes, nose, vomiting blood"

"—Sykes is down!"

"Is it radiation?"

"Where are the prisoners!? They have turned off their shockers. They must be responsible?"

Followed by various retching of the individuals and the moans of pain and discomfort… it wasn't long before Octavia recalled the symptoms they were describing.

"Biological warfare."

Jaha looked at her, puzzled.

"When we first started fighting the grounders, they sent Murphy back to camp infected with a virus. We didn't know, of course, but it wasn't long before everybody who had even been in remotely close proximity started getting very sick, puking up blood and dying. They said it was used to…. soften the battlefield."

She turned her attention back to the radio.

"(cough) prisoners…. getting away…. shoot them with mining lasers…. (cough)"

The full understanding of what she was hearing suddenly came together for her. A spaceship. Prisoners. A sudden connection to an internal communication system in the ship. Biological warfare with a distinctive grounder element that it seemed the prisoners were immune from. Prisoners willingly escaping into whatever was left of the world.

She looked at Jaha, hardened with years of emotion and the weight of leadership who finally had some relief in sight. "Can't you see? The prisoners are Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, and the others!"

NOTE: I should mention, one thing that has bothered me about my story for the past few weeks has been how I never addressed Abby's illness/leftover Alie brain. I couldn't figure out how to do it, and I think its too late for me in this story to even address but yes, I have thought about it and sort of lamented about my failure to include it! Especially since I am fairly certain Abby will die next season (Clarke can't have her mother, her new daughter, and true love by the end of the show... that would just be too wonderful for her). Anyhow in terms of trying to craft a realistic Season 5, I know I failed there. Happy to hear some thoughts on how you think you would have dealt with it or what might happen in Season 5!